The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(99)

“Without a bigger search party, we might not find her.” Ash didn’t need to add the unspoken “in time.” They all knew what she was thinking.

“It’s the best we can do for now.” Easton turned to Jonah and Marcus. “As soon as the weather breaks, get dogs out here and get everyone involved.”

Taking his supplies and a gassed-up ATV, Graham looked at Ash. “We’ll find her,” she promised.

Sometimes people got lost in these mountains and never came back. But Graham wasn’t going to come back without her, weather be damned. He’d left her thinking he didn’t love her, and if that was the last conversation they had, Graham would never be able to forgive himself.

“We’ll find her.” Graham started the engine with a snarl of his own. “And then I’m never letting her go again.”

As they retraced the trail Cory had taken, the visibility was nearly nonexistent. Graham bellowed himself hoarse calling Zoey’s name, knowing Ash was doing the same just behind him. And still he could barely hear her. Rain and wind beat at them from all directions, and the storm had brought down tree limbs into their path. They rounded a corner and found a huge evergreen had downed across the trail, impossible to get around.

“What do you want to do?” Ash leaned into his shoulder, yelling into his ear to be heard. “Do you want to keep going?”

“I’m not leaving her out here!”

Pink hair plastered to her face, Ash nodded. “I’ll radio East and let him know we’re going ahead on foot.”

The fallen tree was massive, and Graham was still trying to find a good place to go over it when Ash came back, waving her radio in her hand.

“It’s Easton! He found her!”

“Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I could barely hear him. But he says come back in.”

*

Zoey stood in the center of the angry mass of people in the hotel lobby, holding a blanket Easton had found her wrapped tight around her shoulders. He hadn’t left her side since returning to the resort, standing so close her shoulder brushed his arm.

She just couldn’t get warm, no matter how much body heat Easton gave off.

“You need to sit,” Easton rumbled, his gravelly voice like a slow rockslide. “You’re pale as a sheet.”

“I’m fine. Just cold.”

Which was mostly true. Zoey was physically fine, if more than a little shaken up. She didn’t know how long she’d been lost, trying to find her way back to the trail, but she’d hit deep mud and gotten stuck. Faced with staying on the ATV and in the path of rising water or backtracking on foot, she’d chosen to go it on foot. Terrified and half-drowned, Zoey had turned a bend and there he’d been, a massive, bearded man in the woods. Even if her rescuer had looked like Sasquatch on an ATV, she had nearly cried in relief, desperately grateful to not be alone.

Zoey hadn’t even realized until they were in front of the lights of his ATV that Easton Lockett was the one who’d found her.

Once, Graham had told her Easton knew these woods better than anyone, and now Zoey believed it. Arms around his waist, she’d simply held on as he took trail after trail, cut across a field she only vaguely recognized from her horseback-riding trip, and ended up at the barn Mugs had rejected her in. Grateful to be out of the rain, Zoey waited as Easton radioed that she had been found.

Assuring her that no one would mind, Easton borrowed one of the stable’s work trucks, driving her back to the resort. He could have left her there, his work done, but the storm had knocked out the hotel’s power, and the hotel had descended into chaos as the computer systems went down. Everyone’s keycards were no longer working, and no one could get in their rooms. Hundreds of more important—or at least angrier—people than Zoey were screaming at the overwhelmed staff.

Lana was in the midst of it, fighting for their place in line, determined that Zoey was going to get her hot shower before she died from pneumonia. A hot shower or some time in the sauna followed by a change of clothes would be awesome, but Zoey doubted that would happen anytime soon.

She should sit, but Zoey was rattled enough that she couldn’t. Besides, there wasn’t anywhere to sit but the floor, and she wasn’t sure she could find a corner where she wouldn’t accidentally get trampled.

Easton moved closer, his heavy hand coming down on her shoulder. Zoey was too exhausted and emotionally ravaged to feel intimidated by his presence. This was Graham’s friend, and in this moment, he was her friend too. So she leaned into his hand, thinking she was dangerously close to becoming a pile of muddy Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and muddier jeans on the floor.

“Screw this,” Easton suddenly growled. “I’m taking you back to Graham’s place.”

“I can’t. He doesn’t want me there.”

The mountain at her side snorted. “If he doesn’t want you there, he’s doing a terrible job of acting like it. Come on.”

The hand on her shoulder became a heavy arm around her shoulders as Easton steered her toward the hotel entrance. She was too exhausted to fight him and too overwhelmed by the other resort guests to want to stay in the lobby any longer.

“Okay, but I need to tell Lana.”

There were so many people in between her and the desk that there was no way Zoey could even start to find her friend.